Five Minutes in Attolia
by meldahlie
Summary: A random assortment of one-shots and drabbles collected from throughout the realm. Why does the Minister of War dislike Attolia? And what is Relius thinking about marriage? [WARNING! Now contains SPOILERS for Thick as Thieves! BEWARE!]
1. Retraction

Retraction

In which Irene imagines being married to someone else, and Gen has the answer (as usual)

~:~

The ink pot on the desk behind her moved. For a moment, Irene imagined being married to a large, jovial man, who would come and go by the main doors to her apartments, so their attendants would not wonder and whisper. A man who would ask her directly and cheerily what the matter was. A man of confidence, good humour, _bonhomie._ A man whom people liked at very first sight, even her troublesome barons. A man with two hands, who liked riding and hunting. A man with no private haunting devils of Medes and nightmares and homesickness.

It was an awful vision.

Her king literally hooked a cushion off the pile Chloe had carefully arranged on the couch and sat down amidst a wheeze of feathers beside her chair, with his most particularly petulant sigh.

"Something is troubling my queen."

Irene watched two pieces of down slowly settle on the embroidery of her sleeve. "We _are_ in the middle of receiving a state visit," she pointed out. "As the host monarch, it leaves me a lot to think about."

"No."

Irene looked round at him before she could stop herself, and then jerked her vision back to the settling feathers. "No?" she echoed acidly.

"If that was the problem," the king yawned, "you'd have thrown a couple of ink pots and apostrophised Eddis to Medea and back."

"You exaggerate."

This was ignored. "Domestic concerns don't set your face into a marble imitation of the Goddess." He twisted round, reached up and ran one finger along her tightly smiling jaw.

A shiver ran down Irene's spine, followed by a most unqueenly desire to get out of her chair and sit on the cushion beside him. She set her jaw a little tighter against it. He was impossible!

And there was much less height difference between them, sitting side by side on the cushion.

"My queen?"

And no, he never gave up, either. Irene sighed herself at the soft whisper of the question into her hair. Only the truth would ever do, for him. "Your father doesn't like me."

Many, many people didn't like her. The Queen of Attolia didn't care about such things. But Gen's father – Irene's memory crept away from the cold stares and measured responses of the Eddisian Minister of War. She knew, of course. She lived with it, every day. The reason that it was Gen's only forefinger that traced her jaw, that it was his left arm that lay over her shoulder...

And Gen shook his head against hers. "No."

"No?!"

She sat up and pulled away from him – which was a mistake, because it meant she could see that he had one of his most infuriating grins on. "What do you mean, no?"

He pulled her back. "Quite a different reason. You never did take back the insinuation that he drank too much, you know."

~:~:~:~


	2. Classification

Classification 

Relius considers marriage, in all its forms.

~:~

The Magus of Sounis, the King says, is working on a new classification key for his botanical specimens. After he's gone, Relius wonders if he could do the same.

There's political (common) or personal (uncommon). Personal, definitely.

There are the men who are in love with their wives, or those who aren't. Most of his specimens are the latter. Current specimen: former.

There are the wives who are in love with their husbands, or those who aren't. As a general rule, this category follows the same pattern as the previous one and the two don't match up very well. He's fairly confident he's classifying the exception.

Finally, there are the men whose wives know what they're up to, or those whose wives only suspect.

Relius stares out of the window for nearly an hour before concluding that, on this point, the King and Queen of Attolia _do_ have to be classified in with the majority of their court.

~:~:~


	3. Reflections in rhyme

TT

I, Hamiathes' Gift,

from Hephaista's tray did lift.

I stole it once, then stole it twice;

and getting home was rather nice.

QoA

When things are cold, and bleak, and black,

the gods, unseen, are at your back.

And things aren't always as they seem:

with just one hand, I stole my queen.

KoA

If a thief and if you fall,

the gods will keep you on the wall.

I think they find this task a pain:

they've given me a ball and chain.

ACoK

In hidden place a man may learn,

what wealth of ages cannot earn.

And simply he the gods will trust,

then do quite simply what he must.

~:~:~

 _A/N: a few stray whispers of the gods while waiting to see if there really is an elephant in Thick as Thieves :)_


	4. From a certain point of view

From a certain point of view

Upon the wall a guardsman stood

His name was _Costis_ , true and good

His quilted doublet strong and thick

His sword was steady, bright and quick

But 'neath his jerkin lurked the fire

Of temper hot and grievance dire.

* * *

Their Queen a Thief had stole away,

One damned and ne'er forgotten day

And then, as all Attolia knew,

Presumptuously he did her woo,

Forced or bewitched her – who could guess?

To make her word a fateful "Yes."

* * *

He took the Queen, he took the throne,

He made Attolia his own,

The barons knelt and pledged their troth,

The Queen's Guard too (and both were wrath)

 _This_ was their king – to every look,

A printer's boy – with iron hook?

* * *

 _A/N: originally written for the 'Thick as Thieves' ARC contest on Sounis LJ._


	5. Et in Arcadia Ego

Et in Arcadia Ego

HERE BE SPOILERS! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THICK AS THIEVES, GO AWAY **NOW!**

 **~:~**

Helen and Sophos at the end of _Thick as Thieves._ Missing moment. One-shot. SAD.

~:~:~:~

She did not know how long she wept. Only that she lay on the bed, in the room off the library which had been Gen's sanctuary and to which she had fled, and wept – and that Sophos had come in, and knelt down beside the bed to put his arm over her shoulders and his face into the crumpled, soaked linen beside hers, and wept too.

Monarchs must be strong. Helen had known that all her life. Decisions must be made, actions must be taken, life must be lived despite any heart-ache tearing inside you. That was the way it was, and in the particular even more so. The Queen of Eddis and the King of Sounis must be strong. Eugenides needed them to be so. "I need you to be king," he had said to Sophos, before he had ridden away to retake Sounis. "I need you to be queen," he had not needed to put in words to herself, the day she had pledged her country to her former Thief.

But – but – but –

The memory of the letter wrenched another sob from Helen. It would have had to come while they were here, in Eddis. It would have had to be brought in to her while she sat on the throne in the smaller room, the room from which she had sent Gen to steal the Queen of Attolia – sitting on the throne only because she had somehow picked up a splinter in her foot and had wanted to take off her shoe to pull it out.

She should have waited for Xanthe to fetch a stool, as Xanthe had suggested. It seemed somehow to Helen that all this would never have happened, if she had waited for Xanthe's stool.

But she hadn't. Helen shut her eyes tighter, tighter, tighter, against the memory, but it was as futile as trying to shut out the burning vision of the Sacred Mountain. She had sat on the throne, and pulled off her shoe, and there had been a rap on the door. A messenger from Attolia, apologising for the intrusion but he had urgent dispatches and the King, he had been told, was in the training yard and unavailable this early in the morning.

Helen had smiled – it felt now as if it had been her last smile ever. Sophos was taking the business of becoming a swordsman as good as any Eddisian so seriously and intently, he was _almost_ wearing Procivitus' enthusiasm to its breaking point. She had put down her shoe and reached down from the throne for the dispatch bag and broken the seal. Only one letter inside. Gen's – addressed in handwriting gone strangely spiky.

The reason had become clear in the first, agonising lines.

Irene had miscarried. The child was lost. The queen's life itself was uncertain.

Helen could not remember very clearly what had come next, in the letter or in the morning. Her own voice had given orders for this and that, sent attendants here and there – all on its own, before the vast flood waters of grief had become too much to hold back.

A queen does not sit on her throne and weep. So she had fled.

The gods themselves, perhaps, had guided her feet to the empty library and the empty room that had been Gen's. Helen knew she had not chosen there, or anywhere. She had only fled, until the carved bedstead with the outline of the Sacred Mountain on its footboard had seemed to rush at her out of the blinding haze of tears. And she had flung herself down onto the pristine linen, as carefully made up and aired as the whole palace was even with herself and Sophos so rarely there, and wept.

Wept for the child, that had gone back to the Great Goddess without ever living or smiling or laughing.

Wept for her Minister of War, who had said so little about this child, because he had wanted it to come so much.

Wept for Attolia as a land, whose people would not light bonfires on the hills and lanterns in the streets and dance gladly at the birth of their next monarch.

Wept for Eddis as a land, who would not wonder if a half-Attolian child might yet be their Thief.

For Phresine and Iolanthe and all the other Attolian attendants who would not nurse and tend and rejoice over the child.

For all the gaggle of young second-cousins-once-or-twice-removed in the tangled genealogies of the Eddisan court, so alike in name and age and looks only their mothers seemed to be able to tell them apart, who would not add another to their number.

For Galen, who would feel he should have been there in some way to help.

For Sophos, who minded even when the kitchen maid's baby had teething pains

For herself, who wept.

For Gen, in so many heart-wrenching ways that she only knew that she wept because his careful, precious, laboured handwriting had gone all spiky.

And for the Queen of Attolia. For Irene. For her friend …

She must have spoken the word, for Sophos lifted his head to look at her. He looked so like his uncle, if his uncle had ever wept until his eyes were red and his face was blotchy and his scar-twisted mouth had gone all wobbly around the edge, that an burst of unconscious, unwanted laughter welled up suddenly in Helen. It hit a sob somewhere on the way out, and turned into a choke, and she had to sit up to cough.

Sophos got up from his knees and sat on the edge of the bed and held out his arms without a word. She buried her face into his shoulder. "I want to go to them."

Sophos said nothing. He didn't need to.

Helen drew a shaky breath. "I know we can't. I know."

Sophos nodded slowly. "They'll understand."

Somehow, the pronoun made more tears well up in Helen's eyes. She blinked them away. "It's not so far to Attolia from here compared to Sounis," she said, struggling to make the ache of the truth into a joke. "Couldn't – couldn't we send each other to the coastal provinces for a week?"

Sophos laughed, a sound so small and sad Helen held him tightly again for another minute. Then she got up and walked to the window. "He was right, you know."

"Oh?"

Helen stared out at the palace courtyard below. "When he said that to change a person's mind, you change the mind of the person next to them. I stood by this window and cried because I hated Attolia so. But then she changed his mind, and now I'm … I'm … standing here crying because I _don't_ hate her..." Helen fought to stop her breath from juddering. "So … so Gen was … was right..."

"He always is." Sophos had come up behind her, and wrapped his arms around her again. "In the end, he's always right. He lay there and said I'd marry you, for one thing."

A smile, sad but real, had crept into Sophos' voice. Helen twisted round to look up at her husband, and he bent a little to add a kiss to his final conclusion. "And – no matter what – he's always all right, in the end, as well. Like you and I…"

~:~:~


	6. Correspondence

Correspondence

AGAIN, SPOILERS!

~:~

Why is Costis' sister writing to him?

~:~:~

 _Dear Costis,_

 _As you're not going to really read this letter, and roll your eyes and have to hide it quick before Aris or anyone else in the Guard sees it, I can start by saying: I miss you. I wish you were here. I know you've been away for years now, in the Queen's King's Guard, but I still miss you on the days I really want to tell you something. A letter isn't quite the same, and it's even less now I know you're not just down in the city, serving in the palace._

 _Where are you this afternoon? All you could tell us in that brief two day visit was that you were assigned to accompany Ambassador Ornon, and there might be other work for you as well. I wonder..._

 _But, I didn't start writing this letter on a hot morning when the ink is getting blotty just to whine about you being away. I had a funny story to tell you!_

 _Getis came up this morning. He's getting quite big now, and was as proud as anything to think he had been trusted to bring 'Cousin Thalia' her letters. That's it: letters. Not just one letter, but many. I think every one of the Queen's attendant's has written to me! One and all, they want to know if I have an address for you, if I have heard from you, if you are all right, and if I will send on their good wishes to you. One or two of the bolder ones want to know if I could forward letters!_

 _At first I thought this was a joke, or nastiness, or maybe some baron trying to pry into the king's plans. But then there was a letter from Phresine, and I don't think from your letters that she'd be nasty, and then one from Heiro, and I don't think from your letters she was into treason. So I conclude that they are, indeed, all very fond of Lieutenant Ormentiedes, and missing him nearly as much as his sister is._

 _Costis? What have you been up to in the Royal Court? Do I want to know?_

 _I know there's no way I can really send this to you, off there in the Mede empire. So I'm going to take it up the path into the hills this afternoon, up to the little grove where the old temple fell down that day in the earthquake – do you remember the earthquake? I hope you don't remember how I cried so with fright, but I expect you do. What else are big brothers for? Anyway, I'm going up there, and I'm going to light a fire and burn this letter and pray to Phillia and Miras and your new god Eugenides and any other gods who might be listening that they will carry something of my words and everything of my love across the ocean to you._

 _Then I'd better start on writing back to all these grand ladies!_

 _Please be taking care of yourself, and don't do anything rash._

 _Your loving sister,_

 _Thalia_

 _ps. Heiro seems the nicest._


	7. Bling

Bling

Aris lends a hand with Costis' preparations for the journey. What else are friends for?

~:~

"No," said Costis firmly, clutching his ear.

"Yes," said Aris firmly, holding the awl.

The black jet earring on the tray stared balefully up at them and said, as might be expected, nothing.

"He might have had it made into a signet ring," Costis grumbled.

"Rings can be taken off by someone else," Aris retorted. "As you know, and he knows you know."

"Or a neck chain."

"Like a slave?! C'mon, Costis!" Aris put the awl down in the tray, and reached over to jog his friend's shoulder. "One little punch and it's all done!"

"No," said Costis mulishly.

"You've been telling us all for weeks how you'd march into the mouth of hell for him," Aris pointed out, with another good-natured shove to Costis' shoulder. "You didn't qualify it with 'only with intact ears'!"

Stubborn silence.

"Ladies have both ears pierced."

Black look.

"I know you are Close-mouthed Costis, but this is ridiculous."

"No."

Aris sighed, picked up the awl and used it to count on his fingers. "Sejanus. Dite. Philo dear. Hilarion. Ion. Relius. Baron Susa. Even Leguras the Awesomely Beautiful has an earring – and you're the first and only person I'm ever telling that he cried every night for a week after he had the hole punched, pulling the bit of thread through it. It can't be so bad."

Costis set his jaw stubbornly. "The _King_ doesn't have one."

"The king doesn't have his right hand," said Aris bluntly. "I'm not proposing to cut your ear off completely! And my little sisters will still think you're gorgeous."

Costis gave him a completely bewildered look. "What on earth does that have to do with it?"

"They're not the ones cutting bits off you?"

Costis shut his eyes, and opened them quickly as Aris made a teasing jerk with the awl. "If you are trying to appeal to my sense of honour, the answer is still: No."

"The answer is still: Yes."

"No."

"Would you just put your head down on that tabletop and have your ear bored, Lieutenant Ormentiedes!"

"No!"

Aris slammed the awl down again with a bang. "Drinking that large cup of wine first was supposed to dull the pain, not make you as stubborn as an ornery mule!" He picked up the awl and pointed it with an air of finality at Costis. "There are three options. You can have your ear bored now. Or I can tell Ornon, who will send for those two very large Eddisians. If they are able to squash the king, they can certainly squash his pet guard, and will probably have no qualms or sensitivities in doing it whatsoever. Or-"

He stopped. There was a long pause before Costis sighed. "And the third option?"

"I can tell the king. And you'll simply wake up tomorrow night with your ear pinned to the bedpost."

Costis looked at him, looked at the unbarred window, looked at the leather curtain over the doorway. Then, with the air of one submitting to his own execution, he bent and put his head onto the tabletop. "Punch!"

Aris rose to stand over him. "You know, there's one good thing," he pointed out cheerily, poking the tip of the awl quickly into the lamp flame.

"Huh?"

"Whatever happens on this mysterious errand which you can tell me nothing about except that I'm imagining it all and you're merely being packed off as a guard for Ambassador Ornon, you'll know that nothing – no shipwrecks, no falls, no wounds, nothing! – will be quite as terrible as this!"

~:~


	8. The Queen's Birthday

The Queen's Birthday

What happens on the Queen of Eddis' birthday? One-shot, some time before QoA

~:~

"You know," said the Queen of Eddis, drawing out the library chair opposite and sinking into it, "most people would have stood up when I came in? Offered their chair?"

The Thief of Eddis, who had only raised one eyebrow in greeting, finally looked up from his scroll. "But then you always have to sit on a lukewarm seat. Which you don't actually like."

He grinned, the saucy grin which had annoyed so many of the boys in Eddis' court that she had been obliged to move his quarters in here, into the library. Eddis shook her head at him. "You're quite hopeless. Quite, quite hopeless."

Another saucy grin. "So everyone tells me."

"And then you steal their earrings," said Eddis, quickly checking her own. "And that," she added quickly, "is what I've come to speak to you about. It's my birthday tomorrow. And there will be presents. And what I'm asking is that you won't steal any of the presents until _after_ I've seen them." She raised one finger and pointed it at him firmly. "It didn't matter so much when I was only a princess, but gifts to the queen are affairs of state. And it was very tricky last year, not knowing that Alenia had actually given me something, and very frustrating not to know until a week later, when I went up to the temple and looked at Eugenides' alter, that Therespides had given me an amphora of Attolian hair oil and therefore needs keeping a better eye on."

"So?"

"So I'm asking you," Eddis repeated, "to not steal anything until after I've seen it. Not 'had time to see it.' Actually seen it. As a birthday favour?"

For a moment, Eugenides seemed to consider this. One eyebrow rose, sank, rose again – and then with a smirk he turned back to his scroll on the desk. "So, so. But you really should honour the gods on your birthday too, you know."

~:~:~

In spite of that smirk, it had all gone well, Eddis reflected the next evening, watching from the head of the banquet table as the servers cleared away the dishes from the main course. Apparently spurred by her request, Eugenides hadn't stolen any of her presents, or anything that she knew of all day. No-one had come to dinner missing a fibula pin or with mismatched earrings. Eugenides had even given her a new pair of earrings that she hadn't seen anyone else wearing before. No doubt, in a day or two there would be a protest from a jeweller in the city, but for the moment – Eddis allowed herself to relax.

The servers finished clearing the dirty plates. They went round and refilled the wine cups. The brought in the plates and forks for the nut cakes which Eddis had chosen as dessert to celebrate her birthday, expensive though the nuts were to import from Attolia. Further down the table, Eugenides was chatting amicably with his oldest brother-in-law. The servers took out some more serving dishes. They refilled the wine cups again. And again.

And then there was a commotion at the serving door and the head of the kitchens scuttled to the side of Eddis' chair to hiss with an anguished and all too carrying whisper:

"Your Majesty! All the cakes have Gone Missing!"

~:~:~


	9. Not Telling

Not Telling

In which Ina knows a secret.

~:~

I know a secret.

No. That's not the quite accurate truth. It's sort of true. "Sort-of-true"s are difficult.

So is sort of knowing a secret.

Perhaps I should say: I suspect a secret. Sort of.

This is getting worse.

Let's start again. I sort of know something that nobody else seems to have noticed. Does that make it a secret?

Anyway, I think somebody ought to be told about this thing nobody seems to have noticed. But I don't know who.

I tried to tell Sophos. But he doesn't have much time to spend with us these days, and Eurydice was there and it's a rather grown-up secret for a little girl like her to know, so I was trying to be discrete. I started out by reminding Sophos how he'd been when he'd first started liking Eddis – as Mother says we have to call her, even though she says we have to call her 'Helen' if we're her little sisters now – and how he suddenly had much less time to play with us.

But I didn't get any further, because Sophos misunderstood. He didn't let me get any further, but started telling us how he did still love us and did still have time for us and marrying Helen and being Sounis didn't change any of that, really truly – just that he was very busy now and he had a lot of things he had to see to and that life does change as you get older and how I'd understand that soon – but we were to always know that he did still love us and did still have time for us, and hadn't he made time right now?

Then Ion came for him and he had to rush off and do something else.

So I haven't told Sophos.

If I tell Mother, she'll tell me that's the sort of thing little girls shouldn't notice. And I don't think that would be at all helpful. I mean, how am I to not notice it? I already have – it's just everyone else who hasn't.

If I try and tell Eddis – because she does keep saying that we are her little sisters too now and she _wants_ us to tell her things – she probably would understand. But she'd also tell Sophos, and then he'd be upset because I hadn't told him.

So I can't tell Eddis.

I can't tell Eurydice.

I can't tell Father.

Sophos tells Attolis things by sealed diplomatic dispatch, but I certainly can't do _that._

I can't tell a single one of them!

I said that out loud. Eurydice heard me.

"You could tell the Magus," she said solemnly. "If you can't tell Mother or Father or Sophos. I told him about wanting a new kitten."

There are times when I know why the Queen of Attolia throws ink pots. (Sophos says she does, anyway.)

How can I tell the Magus?! Hasn't anyone else noticed that he's always abstracted these days, has no time to talk to Eurydice or I, and is always wandering off into the gardens or writing very long very private letters?!

Can't _everyone_ else see the Magus is in love?!

~:~:~


	10. An Irresponsible Knave

An Irresponsible Knave

~:~

How did Ornon feel about his role as Ambassador of Attolia to the Mede empire? One-shot, post TaT, so SPOILERS!

~:~

Eugenides, when he was only The Thief of Eddis, had been wont to complain that he was always the dancing bear at the centre of the circus. He never seemed to have any consideration for those who were obliged to watch as his appearance reduced conventional, decorous, respectable court life into the sort of low circus which had dancing bears, or a scene from one of the raucous new farcical comedies. He certainly showed no consideration at all for those who, however reluctantly, found themselves thrust into the role of showman for the dancing bear.

Ornon closed his eyes, but the memories were as persistent and unavoidable as the Thief of Eddis himself. The Day With The Sheep. Eugenides' scandalous arrival after months of absence, waving Hamiathes' Gift and clad in nothing but a grubby over-shirt and bandages. The terrible day of trying to enrage the Queen of Attolia enough to have the Thief hanged, not tortured, with the all too real risk of enraging her enough to have the Ambassador of Eddis hanged too. The weeks of fraught marriage negotiations. The awful months of watching Eugenides play the buffoon as King of Attolia. His stunt of continually "forgetting" the name of the Mede ambassador...

Ornon had hoped it might be better if away from Eugenides himself. But given that months of absence, the loss of one hand and the imposition of royal duties had not relieved the situation, he should have known distance was a vain hope. Even here in the Mede empire, the dancing bear seemed to take a delight in featuring, and in obliging Ornon to display him. Ornon's hopes of a quiet time had been dashed with the addition of what Aulus had named "Gen's pet guard" to his retinue. Then there had been the delicate renting of the river boat; the hours talking round the Mede slave woman Eugenides had somehow known about; the difficult day in which Gen's pet guard had vanished along with the Emperor's heir's brother's slave (a mouthful in any tongue and even more in Mede); the more difficult day when the said slave had been reported arriving safe and sound in Attolia; the most difficult day when the Imperial navy had been destroyed.

And now – Ambassador Melheret had returned, and the dancing bear had more than ever appeared in the circus of the Mede court.

The entire Imperial court had rocked with laughter at the King of Attolia's theft of Ambassador Melheret's statue, those who disliked Melheret for his unheeded advice over the navy laughing the loudest. Little though he was growing to like any Mede, Ornon had to admire the way Melheret held his head high, and maintained his austere and determined smile. The glares he fired at Ornon, the representative of His Deceptively Irresponsible Knavishness the King of Attolia were entirely understandable.

Ornon sighed. It would not be welcome, or diplomatic, or polite, or ambassadorial, or politic, or even possible. But it would be nice, in a way, to be able to stop Melheret one day in some quiet corridor and say: "I know exactly how you feel."


	11. Worry about me

Worry About Me

How did the King of Attolia steal the Mede Ambassador's statuette?

~:~

A night of pleasure, then finally, sleep. Ansel stirred drowsily, and stretched himself out between the rumpled linen sheets, a comfortable stretch, down into his very toes. It was still dark. No glimmer of morning tinted the blackness beyond the open window, no noise stirred in the room. Was it the beautiful creature lying in the other half of the bed who had woken him? Wanting, perhaps, to continu-

"Your wife didn't come with you."

The breath of the whisper was warm on Ansel's ear. The words were a blast of icy terror, cold as the knife blade that slipped onto his neck before he had time to do more than freeze in shock.

"Don't do this again," said the whispering darkness.

"I-I-" Was the knife blade really pressing as hard as it felt, that the words could not come? "I – won't-" Ansel panted.

"I do have a responsibility for what happens in my palace," the whisper continued. "Your wife will be furious-"

His wife! Ansel's heart skipped a beat at the thought.

"And her family-"

His heart stopped altogether.

How did the King of Attolia know that his wife's family were far more important than a mere secretary, even a secretary to an Ambassador, should ever normally have married into? His wife was almost everything a Mede woman should, ideally, not be: large, loud voiced, strident of opinion. Even as the eldest daughter of a wealthy and influential family, she had remained the unmarried embarrassment – until a young scribe by the name of Ansel had paid court to her.

It had worked well, just as he had figured at the time. Her family had, in their relief, asked very few questions. They had, on the contrary, stirred heaven and earth and half of Ianna Ir to get their eldest daughter's husband a suitable post and income as a private free secretary. It had not been possible to go too high – the upper ranks of the Mede court preferred slave secretaries as being more safely disposable – but secretary to Ambassador Melheret was not a post to be sniffed at.

But if they heard...

Disgrace, divorce, destitution danced before Ansel's eyes in the blackness.

"You mightn't live to have to worry much?" said the whisper in his ear.

Was that the breath of a chuckle with it?

Ansel gasped for more air under the pressing terror on his throat. "Your – your Majesty – I – I beg you-"

"Or you might live to tell me something..."

"The statuette!" Ansel gasped, clutching at this gleam of hope. The King of Attolia had been so – interested – in that! "It is in the engraved wood box, within the tapestry chest in the reception room!"

Ambassador Melheret had put it there himself, in an effort to keep it safe. But surely, surely, if it went missing, he would blame the king; he would not suspect Ansel-

"It is locked!" he added desperately. "But the spare key is on the key chain on my desk-"

This time the king did chuckle. "I knew that," he said. "No, no, Ansel. I merely wondered if – after your expensive evening – if you would like a little more money?"


End file.
